HELLO WORLD!
With Microsoft’s SharePoint conference in Las Vegas starting today (Monday, October 19), Google has broadened its Going Google ad campaign.
Not familiar with the campaign? Â It is Google’s ad campaign to push harder into the business world with its enterprise offerings. Â Here’s a short YouTube video Google put out:
If you haven’t been watching Google for a while, then you might have missed what they’ve been doing lately. Â While still owning the majority of search volume online (around 60-65%), Google has begun pushing into other areas as well. Â A few of the key areas that I think any business should consider:
- GMAIL – Google has made some incredible changes to G-mail that can be a HUGE time and cost saver to many businesses. Â Now any domain (yourWebDomain.com) can run it’s own e-mal through Gmail. Â What does this mean? Â It means that you can take advantage of Google’s Anti-Spam features (powered by Postini) – which are some of the absolute best in the business. Â You can also read your e-mail online through the G-Mail interface. Â You can have an assistant send e-mail on the boss’s behalf ( e-mail delegation), and e-mail archiving. Â You get ALL of this without giving up your own domain name. Â This means that you continue to have you e-mail as Joe@YourDomain.com, but the e-mail is routed through the GMail Service. Â The person sending you an e-mail AND the person receiving an e-mail from you all see the Joe@YourDomain.com as the e-mail, but you get all the storage, spam filtering, e-mail archiving / backup, web interface, etc. of Gmail!
Cost: $5 per user per year
Savings: Â This could be a huge savings. Â Companies can stop paying thousands of dollars for expensive spam filters / appliances. Â Also (as you will see below), this cost could be even bigger in that you could COMPLETELY DITCH an Exchange server! Â This could save thousands more every year! - Google Calendar – Google calendar is a powerful, shareable calendaring system. Â And, the best feature is that it can integrate seamlessly with MS Outlook and Apple iCal! Â Â In addition to this, it completely supports multiple users – meaning you can see when other in your organization are busy and schedule meetings with them. Â You can also share your calendar, allowing others to simply view it, edit it, etc. Â Again, this gives everyone all the functions of a typical MS Exchange server at a cost that will save thousands every single year.
Cost: $5 per user per year (this is the same $5 user per year as the above, not in addition)
Savings: Again this could be huge. Â Getting rid of an Exchange server will save any organization thousands of dollars a year. - Google Docs – Â Google has been putting out three very powerful web based programs – Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and PowerPoint programs. Â These programs aren’t as advanced as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Â But, most users don’t use the advanced features in these programs. Â And, again, the cost savings is HUGE! Â All three programs also allow for complete sharing of docs. Â This means you NEVER again have to e-mail a doc to a co-worker. Â You simply share it with him or her and you both edit it together. Â You can see changes made by Co-Worker X and roll back, etc. Â It makes collaboration a snap!
Cost: FREE (although when used with the $5 per user per year, it is a bit simpler to collaborate)
Savings: Well, let’s see with the average cost of MS Office from Amazon running around $325, the cost savings is $325 multiplied by the number of workers who choose to use Google Docs. Â Again, The answer here is THOUSANDS more, potentially! - Google Analytics – Do you have a website? Â Do you know how many visits you get? Â How long people stay on your site? Â Which pages are visited the most? Â All of this data is available for FREE from Google. Â Simply add a few lines of code to the bottom of your website and you can get all the data about your site you could want and MUCH more!
Cost: FREE
Savings: None, unless you are paying for an analytics page now or using some stupid looking hit counter (then you don’t save money, you just save the hassle of having a stupid hit counter on your home page)
These are just four of my favorite Google products right now. There’s a ton more that we could talk about. Â Things like: Google Voice, Google Wave, Google Checkout, Google Wave, etc. Â All of these are available for free and could save companies a ton of money and a lot of time.
Interested? Â Got Questions? Â Leave me a comment or contact us. Â We’d love to talk more with you about how we can help save you money!